the glitter of fpears and helmets, and the banners floating dimly on the twilight; while now and then the blast of a diftant trumpet echoed along the defile, and the fignal was answered by a momentary clash of arms. She looked with horror upon the mountaineers, perched on the higher cliffs, affailing the troops below with broken fragments of the mountain; on foldiers and elephants tumbling headlong down the lower precipices; and, as fhe liftened to the rebounding rocks, that followed their fall, the terrors of fancy yielded to those of reality, and the fhuddered to behold herself on the dizzy height, whence she had pictured the defcent of others.

Madame Montoni, meantime, as the looked upon Italy, was contemplating in imagination the fplendour of palaces and the grandeur of caftles, fuch as fhe believed fhe was going to be mistress of at Venice and in the Apennine, and she became, in idea, little less than a princefs. Being no longer under the alarms which had deterred her

from

from giving entertainments to the beauties of Tholoufe, whom Montoni had mentioned with more eclat to his own vanity than credit to their discretion, or regard to truth, The determined to give concerts, though fhe had neither ear nor tafte for mufic; converfazioni, though fhe had no talents for converfation; and to outvie, if poffible, in the gaieties of her parties and the magnificence of her liveries, all the nobleffe of Venice. This blissful reverie was fomewhat obfcured, when she recollected the Signor, her hufband, who, though he was not averse to the profit which fometimes refults from fuch parties, had always fhewn a contempt of the frivolous parade that fometimes attends them; till the confidered that his pride might be gratified by difplaying, among his own friends, in his native city, the wealth which he had neglected in France; and the courted again the fplendid illufions that had charmed her before.

The travellers, as they defcended, gradually, exchanged the region of winter for the

genial warmth and beauty of fpring. The sky began to assume that ferene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy; patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily among the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts from their broken fides; and the buds of the oak and mountain afh were expanding into foliage. Defcending lower, the orange and the myrtle, every now and then, appeared in fome funny nook, with their yellow bloffoms peeping from among the dark green of their leaves, and mingling with the fcarlet flowers of the pomegranate and the paler ones of the arbutus, that ran mantling to the crags above; while, lower ftill, spread the paftures of Piedmont, where early flocks were cropping the luxuriant herbage of spring.

The river Doria, which, riling on the fummit of Mount Cenis, had dashed for many leagues over the precipices that bor dered the road, now began to affume a less impetuous, though fcarcely lefs romantic character,

character, as it approached the green vallies of Piedmont, into which the travellers defcended with the evening fun; and Emily found herself once more amid the tranquil beauty of paftoral scenery; among flocks and herds, and flopes tufted with woods of lively verdure and with beautiful shrubs, fuch as fhe had often feen waving luxuriantly over the alps above. The verdure of the pafturage, now varied with the hues of early flowers, among which were yellow ranunculufes and panfey violets of delicious fragrance, fhe had never feen excelled.Emily almost wished to become a peasant of Piedmont, to inhabit one of the pleasant embowered cottages which fhe faw peeping beneath the cliffs, and to pafs her careless hours among these romantic landscapes. To the hours, the months, fhe was to pafs under the dominion of Montoni, she looked with apprehenfion; while those which were departed fhe remembered with regret and forrow.

In the prefent fcenes her fancy often

gave her the figure of Valancourt, whom she saw on a point of the cliffs, gazing with awe and admiration on the imagery around hir.; or wandering penfively along the vale below, frequently paufing to look back upon the scenery, and then, his countenance glowing with the poet's fire, purfuing his way to fome overhanging height. When the again confidered the time and the distance that were to feparate them, that every step fhe now took lengthened this distance, her heart funk, and the furrounding landscape charmed her no more.

The travellers, paffing Novalefa, reached, after the evening had clofed, the finall and antient town of Sufa, which had formerly guarded this pass of the Alps into Piedmont. The heights which command it had, fince the invention of artillery, rendered its fortifications ufelefs; but these romantic heights, feen by moon-light, with the town below, furrounded by its walls and watch-towers, and partially illumined, exhibited an interefting picture to Emily.

Here